Mexico...Isla Mujeres

I took this shot with the camera held at a full arms length and upside down with a wide angle lens on while we were driving our golf buggy up to the other end of Isla Mujeres.........Wendy is at the wheel and looking like she was just loving it, while Samara is in the back in her little "dickie seat".......these little buggy's are absolutely perfect for getting around this island and there are hundreds of them, I think everyone that visits this place gets one of these while they are here.....I like this shot, it has got "holiday" written all over it.

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

The sign says it all.

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

Refer to previous photo of sign. This is the opposite end of Isla Mujeres to where we are staying

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

Samara and Wendy both squeeling through their snorkels while I'm on the jetty cracking up with laughter after a couple of hundred fish all mobbed them after they went in for a bit of a look.......the fish were literally jumping out of the water and brushing right up against them..............it was something to see and hear, Wendy was making most of the noise by the way !!!

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

Samara and Wendy with a couple of the boys from the Mexican military (the Federales) that were chilling out under this palapa up at the opposite end of the island to where we are staying, we met them the day of our big golf buggy expedition.
These guys are quite young with very big guns (M16's I think) that are very much loaded and ready to go, it is just so foreign for us to see so many of these guys anywhere we go in Mexico, but at the same time you tend to feel quite safe with so many of them around also.............and yes, they were friendly. I had been trying to get a shot like this through all our time down in Mexico but until here, the timing had been all wrong, this day it turned around and was all right so I asked and they obliged.

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

Same place as the shot below this but looking the other way up the island..........thats a hotel's pool in the right hand side of the pic, this is the place we stopped to go snorkelling at.

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

Another "too blue to be real" Caribbean Sea shot from Isla Mujeres with a flying fox tower (one of about four) that you can fly around between over the ocean if that's what you feel like.
Cancun is visible in the background across on the mainland.

Mexico....Tulum.

A tropical storm unleashing a bit of energy. I took this shot from in front of our place at Cabanas La Conchita at Tulum .

Mexico...Isla Mujeres

This is the view of a moonrise from the balcony of our place on Isla Mujeres, (meaning isle of women), a tiny little island just off the coast of Cancun that is six kilometers long by one kilometer wide and is infamous for the pirate and slave trader whose name was Munduca.
It is also the second to last major stop for us before returning home, so I was quite determined to do quite a bit of relaxing at this place. The plan was to do half a day of laying on the beach in the mornings and half a day of "other stuff" each day for the duration of our time here, and it pretty well went to plan for the main part of our stay.

It is close to being a perfect setting being right on the tip of the island and right on the beach, (the open ocean side, not the Cancun side) ...........we have a week here so were able to cover the entire island quite well, and the two main modes of transport on this island are, scooters and golf buggy's (of which we hired one of) and drove around the entire island in an afternoon, including stopping to go snorkelling, have lunch and doing general sight seeing as well, so that gives you a good indication of the size of it.

Mexico...Playa Del Carmen.

A tequileria in the main street of Playa Del Carmen, I liked the painting on the wall...........as with all things Mexican, there is plenty of colour.

Mexico....Tulum.

Nothing particularly special about this pic except the fact that the boat had been firmly wedged underneath this house on the beach at Tulum and embedded in one of the house poles as well as being jammed in behind a stand of palm trees. It certainly was'nt coming out of there in one piece.
This all happened in the hurricane that went through this place a couple of months before we arrived here.

Mexico....Coba.

More ruins, this time at a place about an hour inland from Tulum called Coba, still in the state of Quintana Roo.

This site is a lot bigger covering a much larger area with a lot more ruins than the Tulum one and took quite a few hours to go through. It was also pretty good for the fact that there were not anywhere near as many crowds as the Tulum or Chitchenitza sites which was a real bonus, but if you look real hard right at the top of this pyramid, you will still see some tool in an orange shirt that just would'nt get out of the picture . I waited about 20 minutes for him to move, but he would just look down and see me with the camera pointing up towards him and sit there, so in the end I just gave up and shot the pic.............then we all climbed up there, and he was still farting around up there.

Mexico....Tulum.

Paradisio beach, just around the corner from La Conchita at Tulum.........just another amazing setting to spend as much time as possible when it's time to relax and kick back.

Mexico....Tulum.

Some of the Mayan ruins at Tulum, about an hour and a half from Cancun with the vivid turquoise caribbean sea in the background.......the colour of the ocean around here is absolutely amazing, and just as you see in pictures and postcards etc.

Mexico....Tulum.

The view from the hammock at our cabana at La Conchita...........too nice to leave!

Mexico...

Cabanas La Conchita in Tulum...............This place was a real little gem, and we were'nt even going to stay here originally. I had looked at it on the net back home in Oz when I was planning this trip, but chose another place about 200 meters down the road, but I didn't book it in advance. As it turned out, it had been damaged in the hurricane just as we got to Canada in August. When I did go to book the other place, it was still closed due to hurricane damage, so I took this place and once we got there I realised it was the best thing that could have happened...............I will put Wendy on to tell you a bit about it.

Wendy here.......... These cabanas were very tastefully decorated in Mexican style: sand coloured walls and and a burn't red floor with stones and shells placed in the concrete floor. There was about 9 cabanas in the complex and each had an ocean view. In front of the patio, you stepped out onto the sand. Turtles had laid their eggs in the sand back in August and these were marked by small wire fences. We were lucky enough to have two lots of nests hatch while we were there. There was about 100 eggs in one nest, though quite a few of the eggs were dead. We helped collect the baby turtles and put them into a cooler with sea water until the evening came. If the turtles are released during the day too many of them are picked off by pelicans, seagulls etc. It was a magic experience!
The sea in front of the cabanas was the Carribean Sea. It is a magnificent turquoise colour. Just like you see in the travel brochures. We had coconut palms out the front to get some shade. Basically it was just a really great place and we had a ball here.......loved it !

Mexico.....Puerto Escondido.

I am in a bar in Isla Mujeres blogging this as we dont have internet access in our hotel, and I dont have my bit of paper with all these guys names on it with me, so I will check the spelling later, excuse me if I have spelt it wrong Doug.

Doug Sangillo having a fairly close look at a rather glassy Mexpipe wall........and he did see a lot of them too by the way. I would even go as far as saying he got just about every wave he went for !

Puerto Escondido.........

This is a bunch of really top guys from Encinitas that we met while staying at the Santa Fe hotel in Puerto Escondido ( they were in a couple of rooms close to us) for about the same time as us, (a week), and we hit it off great with them.

From left is Chris, Todd, Doug and John..........all surfers and pretty good ones at that, which was good for me as there was always plenty of shots to be had when the waves were on and these guys were out, ( which was pretty well every day at least until 11 or 12 am). This shot was taken at the pool area at Santa Fe about one hour after a camera crew had finished shooting the "Miss Puerto Escondido" beauty pageant......................no wonder they are all grinning, as was myself. I think even Wendy was grinning with all the action going on.

I reckon that some of you may meet some of these guys in Oz sooner or later as there was talk of maybe getting down there one day. and by the way guy's if your reading this, your welcome at our place whenever that may be..........just let us know when your making the trip!

Puerto Escondido.........Chris.

Chris Thibaut rooster tailing the white against a pretty heavy grey sky and enjoying every minute of it no doubt at Mexpipe.....another one of the Encinitas guys, I think from memory they said that they make the trip down here most years to get the wave fix........not bad I reckon !

Puerto Escondido.........John.

This is John Schmauss releasing some energy and momentum at Mexpipe in Puerto Escondido..........John and three mates were staying in Santa Fe, the same hotel as us, and we ran into them all that regularly we became pretty good friends, plus the fact that I would be on the beach every day shooting them, and talking about the days surfing after they came out.............They were getting some hell waves too.

M n M's

its samara again......

this photo is from vegas but i didnt upload the photos from my camera for a while........this shop is M&M's World and it was so cool.......the photo is of all m&ms and there were more at either end but i couldnt fit it all in......i bought some m&ms and they have normal ones, peanut ones and mini ones and more....all arranged by colors and a lot of them arnt even in normal shops.......it was 4 stories high:O

bye....xo

Mexico...Braids.

hi everyone.....its samara

i got my hair braided for $15 with dark and light pink beads.......it only took the lady about an hour and i counted that i had 43 plaits....she was really quick!
Mexico is fun and shopping for jewelry is good but mum takes to long in every shop and it annoys me..........in the last hotel we stayed in they had turtle eggs hatch 2 nights that we were there......we got to get the babys out and put them in an esky then when we had them all we took them closer to the water and got to release them.....they were so cute and there was not many people...only us and another family who had 3 children and one of them was a girl around my age.......We hired a golf buggy the other day because that and mopeds are the only things you can hire on Ilsa Mujeres.......i got to sit in the back and when we were in a back street i drove it......mum says i was good but dad reckons i wasnt listening to him...i did fine anyway!!

bye.....

Mexico.....Puerto Escondido. Todd.

Todd Thornton heading inside at Mexpipe in Puerto Escondido, one of the Encinitas boys we became quite good friends with while there.

Mexico.....Puerto Escondido. Broken Boards.

John Schmauss' board after one of the sessions at Mexpipe..........one that did'nt make it out alive.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido Mechanic !

Mexican mechanic in the workshop..........!!!!! Photographed through the windscreen, sorry.

Mexico... Barra Burritos !

The sign says it all! We didn't go and try them though.....anyway I still think mine are the best!

:)

Mexico...Barra Soccer.

Mexican grommets doing what they do.........kicking the ball around and having fun.....it was good to see them all outside getting their exercise, and not sitting in front of the Xbox or Playstation.

Mexico...Barra River Crossing.

Barra De La Cruz....................this place is down from Puerto .
All the mexican kids thought it was hilarious seeing the white gringo with his family in the rental car doing the river crossings (the thing needed a wash with all the mud that had collected on it further up north near Puerto) . I'll put Wendy on to finish this one while I get ready to head out.

This river was not deep at all but I was concerned that it may have been very soft sand that the car would sink into. I asked Mal to get out and walk through it first to see if it was soft. It wasn't, so we passed through successfully creating a big wave.
Mal did have "spit" with the car when he couldn't get it into reverse as he wanted to get a run up into the water. We were trying to get to a beach that Mal has always wanted to go to and we had followed the road through the village which slowly became narrower and narrower and started to go through fields rather than sand. We decided to double back and the kids in this photo pointed which road was the correct one. It was a very small village which normally would have no tourists at all.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido. Car #7.

The little Mexican beast of a rental car parked at Barra De La Cruz after a very interesting trip down. I can say one thing about this little heap of @#*?...........it was a real education driving it, especially on mexican roads, and it is the first manual we have had on the whole trip............I had to half kill the thing and basically jump on the gear stick with all my weight and both hands to get it in to reverse.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido. Roads.

Mexican roads..........some are bad and some are just a lot worse, (there are some good roads over here), this is one of the reasonably bad ones, just outside of Puerto Escondido on the way to Barra De La Cruz. We took the rental car on a little bit of a diversion to have a look at something I was interested in, and this is the road we had to travel on.
I like this shot mainly for the dashboard display, the pic in general has got Mexico written all over it, but with the Lonely Planet guide sitting up there with it's reflection in the window, it just makes it all the better.
It was an unintentional shot.......(I was just shooting the muddy road through the windscreen because it was too muddy to step out of the car), but when I downloaded it and saw it, that was it..............it was in.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido, Hacienda Revolucion.

The Hotel Hacienda Revolucion . This photo is in here for no particular reason at all other than that I just like it.
This is about a 5 minute walk around the beach to the north west from Zicatella where we are staying, and is the more sheltered beach area that the fishermen all use. Just up from the beach is this part of town with a lot of market type stalls and local produce etc.

Note the baby snoring it's head off in the pram just under the sign.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido.Beach Palapa Night.

Just a little palapa restaurant that we had dinner at right on Zicatella beach (Mexican Pipeline) one night here in Puerto Escondido, the table is literally sitting right out on the beach ...bare feet in the sand and all.........beautiful.
There was a Doors album playing in the background and if you look carefully at the hammocks on the left side there were about two or three worn out surfers kicking back in them and just swinging around with a never ending supply of $1 cerveza's (Corona no less) after a big day in the waves....I just went straight into a bloody big time warp at this joint and stayed in it until we left, it was totally relaxing, and home was just a three minute stroll across the road.............Mexico is full of these little places right on the beach and you can get well and truly fed and liquored for next to nothing in one of the best atmospheres you could wish for.............as I keep saying, I love this country.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido. Playa Principal Nets.

Fishing nets, buoys, boats and sea. This is on the Playa Principal (Main Beach) at Puerto Escondido. There are many palapa cafes all along this beach frontage. I think they all specialise in fish, shrimp (prawns) and lobster. We have eaten in a number of them and they are all big meals. Sometimes we buy 2 meals to share between the 3 of us. The weather has been very hot and it has rained at night. The rain has cooled everything down. The busy tourist season starts here in November (the Mexican Winter) and continues to May. The rest of the time it can be too hot. No wonder siestas are big here.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido Playa Principal Hillside.

Wendy here.........This is the view of the fishing boat bay....Playa Principal. Our hotel is very close to where this photo has been taken. The village creeps up the hill with winding roads, laneways, and tracks. Quite a few of the boats anchor in the bay but many of them come to shore. These ones are driven at full speed on to the sand as far up the shore as possible. A coconut log is then placed under the front of the boat and the boat is pushed onto it. Another log is then placed at the front of the boat and the boat pushed again until there is two logs under the boat. Men push the boat until the first log pops out the back and placed at the front of the boat again. (I think the lifestyle here is very communal and everyone seems to help others). This is continued until the boat is where they want it. You can buy your fish direct from the fishermen if you wish. We prefer ours direct from the restaurant and on a plate!!
Samara and I went to the Mercado (Market) one morning. That was an experience......lots of fresh fruit, flowers, herbs, bakeries, cafes, trinkets, odds and ends plus the inevitable meat, fish, and chicken section. Samara has declared herself as a vegetarian after seeing this! Very little of it was refrigerated.......most was laying on the slab benches ready to be bought. Sometimes a stall holder would have a little "swoosher" (my word for a little stick with plastic strips on the end) to shoo the flies away.

Mexico...Puerto Escondido, Playa Principal.

OK..........Now we are in Puerto Escondido. I will stick Wendy on for a while to write about this one.
We were on a walk around the Playa Principal (Main Beach) and this was one of the colourful shelters for sitting or relaxing. Mal and Samara wanted to go for a walk in the middle of the day even though it was very hot. Something to do, I suppose. Puerto Escondido is a smallish fishing village which has not had a big take-over by Time Share Resorts. It is very pretty with two main beaches: one a fishing boat bay and great for body boarders (at one end) and the other is Zicatela which is a famous surf beach. Also, known as The Mexcian Pipeline. The beaches are separated by a rocky headland. Our hotel is on the border of both beaches which is very handy. Mal goes off to shoot the surf while Samara and I go for a swim or to browse the many stalls and markets. We are staying here for a week which I am pleased about as it is my favourite spot in Mexico so far. We still have 2 more destinations. The food is cheap and delicious.......$8 - $10 US for fresh prawns or fish meals. Every meal comes with tortilla chips and salsa as an entree and that comes free. As there is a few tourists here, there is also plenty of pizza and pasta and vegetarian restaurants. So with Mexican food as well, we are in food heaven. the people are very friendly, like they have been all over Mexico. The different areas we have been to, seem to specialise in different crafts and trinkets. In Mazatlan for example, there was heaps of silver jewellery, here at Puerto Escondido it is more beads. I am starting to buy a few things as we are on the last leg of the trip. We will have to buy an extra bag to get all our stuff home. I don't mind at all!
Margarita's call........it's Happy Hour,
Adios.........................Wendy

Mexico...Mazatlan Divers, Chikas, Jorge and Girls.

Jesus "Chikas" Garcia (holding the sign) and Jorge, with Wendy and Samara after the boys did their dives with the lookout / dive off point in the background at Mazatlan.............certainly something to witness. Nice guys to boot.

Mexico...Mazatlan Diver, Chikas.

Chikas before his dive.......grinning like the proverbial man on a mission.

Mexico...Mazatlan Divers, Mid Flight.

Mazatlan cliff diver, Jesus Garcia leaving the lookout dive point and heading 16 meters down into two meters of ocean with rocks all around him.

I went up to the dive off point with him to shoot this shot........unbelievable being right there with him and him talking me through it while watching all the preperation and stuff going on in his head, his breathing and concentration before leaving me behind was nothing short of astounding..........I think I got just as big a buzz out of being up there with him and watching him go as he did going off.

His name is Jesus........I dont know if he can walk on water, but he certainly can fly across it.

Mexico.....Mazatlan Divers Sequence.

The Mazatlan divers, you have probably heard about, or seen pictures of them. They also practice this past time down the coast a bit to the south at Accapulco.

This is Jesus Garcia "Chikas" to his friends, shot from about 30 meters back towards the esplanade with some sequin clad attention seeker that just refused to get out of the picture looking on.
These guys dive from the top of the small white fence that you can see in the top right corner of the first picture which happens to be about 16 meters above sea level. Where they are heading to is just two meters deep........all they rely on to pull this feat off without breaking their neck is judging the swell patterns so that they are leaving the fence at the top and timing it so as they reach the ocean at the same second the incoming wave passes under them at the entry point, and as soon as they hit the water, putting their bodies into a full upward arch and returning to the surface without hitting the bottom. I must say that this did intrigue me highly.

I spent about half an hour talking to these guys during their dives and after to see what the hell makes them do it....basically they are just young men with balls of steel that are doing what boys do...........they do it because they can, and they get a buzz out of it and earn a bit of money from onlookers giving them tips.

BUT...............it does all go terribly pear shaped at times. About a year or so ago, one of them had just come back from living up in the states for a while.....he used to dive (and was good at it) before moving to the USA to live for a while, and when he came back to Mazatlan and hooked up with his old friends he thought he would give it another go. He took a dive from this spot, misjudged the entry, and hit the bottom instantly breaking his neck, and then floated to the surface in front of a couple of hundered onlookers with cameras flashing and videos rolling......... the hospital turned his life support off about 3 days later. This shook the hell out of Chika, Jorge and the couple of other guys that do this sport, but they are still up there doing it on a daily basis with no more loss of life since then.

The time we did spend talking to them was certainly an interesting conversation, and they seemed like just your average , ordinary, everyday Mexicans ( until you saw them run up to the top of this lookout and then dive off ).

You can see in the last photo here how close to the rocks they actually land, and also how quick they return to the surface..... Chika's head is back out of the water pretty well before his feet have gone in. Very cool, and also a little bit crazy....but you have to admire them.

Mexico.....Mazatlan. Old town esplanade area.

A bar on the foreshore in Mazatlan. Have a good look at the traffic, it is everywhere and anywhere......the rules do not apply !

Mexico...Stone Island, Sinaloa, Mexican Limousine.

The "Mexican Limousine" waiting out the back of the Puesta De Sol bar / restaraunt on Stone Island.

No........I'm not kidding you. That is what they call them, they take on a few different forms, this particular one being the horse drawn version on a single axle, which makes for a very interesting ride over the rough dirt roads on the island.
The other one is a larger version which is basically a large wooden box / crate made up and placed on a old salvaged bus or truck chassis with wooden planks placed from side to side across the box and running from front to back at about 500mm spaced intervals to form seats, and the whole thing is then hooked up to a tractor (extremely old as well, but still running) and off you go.........these big ones carry about 60 passengers....priceless as you would say.

Note the smoke damage coming out of the kitchen window at the back of the place...it is just such a "mexican" scene this one, it is how I have always seen the true Mexico....too good.!

Mexico...Stone Island, Puesta De Sol.

The Puesta De Sol (the setting of the sun) restaraunt / bar on Stone Island just off the coast of Mazatlan.

We went over to this island just for a day and chilled out on the beach and in the bar. It's a great little place and this bar / restaraunt as you can see is right on the beach.......there are hundreds of little bars like this all over Mexico, all on the beach with million dollar views . Just roll in there with your wet boardys or bathers on, "no problemo", take a seat overlooking the ocean and relax while knocking back a few cervaza's or margaritas in between jumping in the 30 degree C ocean for a bit of "ocean therapy"...........I think that this is one of the reasons why I do, (and always have) love Mexico......it is just so easy going and relaxing (opposite to our busy life back home)......it really is a beautiful country.

Mexico...Stone Island Trader.

This woman had a lovely smile and I bought a magnetic stone bracelet off her. We haggled a little bit but came to an amicable agreement. Basically, I didn't want the bracelet but I couldn't resist her pleasantness. I didn't realise she was so short until I stood right beside her. She didn't quite make it up to my shoulder. She covers herself up so she does not get any more sun on her skin. Not like us silly Westerners. (She must be very hot though). She looks like she works hard for her money. She had no English language. We were at a place called "Stone Island" just of Mazatlan. It is a small island, mainly fishing and tourists keep it alive. There is very few cars, so tourists use tractor drawn carts to get from the jetty to where they are going. Samara and I went horse riding which was a lot of fun and interesting to see more of the village. After we got back to the mainland we were told that the island has quicksand and that all horse riders have to go with a guide or whoops here one minute gone the next!

Mexico.....Old Town Mazatlan.

More old town Mazatlan.....

Mexico.....Shop in Old Mazatlan.

Old town Mazatlan again.......colour, and plenty of it !

Mexico.....Artist's House, Old Mazatlan.

Old town Mazatlan................This is a really nice area, and is the original heart and soul of the city. We went in here a couple of times while in Maz, day and night, dinner in this area one night was so relaxed and easy going you just felt like you were meant to be there, and the food was to die for !

Mexico.....Mazatlan Foreshore.

The foreshore again at Mazatlan looking south.